The Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate elected three new trustee representatives in its meeting last night. Seniors Alix Boulud and Josh Friedmann and sophomore Alice Pang will represent the student body on the three trustee committees. Trustee representatives serve as liaisons between the Senate and the Board of Trustees. While they sit on the Senate, they do not have any voting rights.
Boulud will sit on the Administration and Finance Committee. A founder of the Tufts Culinary Society, she mentioned an on-campus kitchen for students to use as a potential project she will pursue with the trustees.
She is eager to hear the ideas of the Senate and the student body. "I'm really more interested in representing the students' interests than my own," she said.
Friedmann was elected to the University Advancement Committee position. In a speech before the Senate body last night, he outlined his vision for a mentorship initiative that would pair students with off-campus alumni.
"Students would benefit by getting insights into the working world, and alumni would benefit at the same time by getting a connection to what's going on, [on] the Hill," Friedmann told the Daily after his presentation at the Senate meeting.
Pang will sit on the Academic Affairs Committee. She has experience in academic issues, having served last year on the Senate's Education Committee, where she pursued the goal of publishing course evaluations online.
"I am incredibly humbled to be chosen to be student representative to the Board of Trustees," Pang said. "I plan to use my time this year constructively to push the boundaries of intellectual life and culture at Tufts."
TCU Historian and Student Outreach Chair Tomas Garcia, a junior, was pleased with the selection of candidates. Six candidates applied for the three available positions.
"We had a very competitive pool of applicants," Garcia said.
TCU President Sam Wallis, a senior, expressed confidence in the new trustee representatives' ability to serve as envoys to the Board of Trustees.
"At the end of the day, the candidates that won represented themselves very well, and they presented themselves with the confidence that's required when addressing the very powerful people that make up the Board of Trustees," Wallis said.
Wallis added that discussions of diversity issues featured more prominently in this year's selection process than in previous ones he had witnessed.
